WCBE 90.5 FM (NPR): "I Heart Huckabees," "Team America: World Police"

WCBE #188-FINAL
“It’s Movie Time” with John DeSando and Clay Lowe
“I Heart Huckabees,” “Team America: World Police”
Taped: 4:00 pm, October 20, 2004
Air Time: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, October 22, 2004
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org.

Script:

John
“I Heart Huckabees” loves existential eccentricities . . .

Clay
“Team America: World Police” blasts its way into young America’s hearts and minds . . .

MUSIC UP AGAIN, THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak
It's Movie Time in Mid-Ohio with John DeSando and Clay Lowe . . .

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER AND SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

DeSando
I'm John DeSando

Clay
And I'm Clay Lowe.

John (“I Heart Huckabees”)
Two films recently take an epistemological tour of reality: “What the Bleep Do We Know” takes the turgid trail trying to explain the shaping thought can do toward destiny; “I Heart Huckabees,” admitting its own “fractured philosophy,” concentrates on the interconnectedness of all people. Both are “New-Age.”

Clay
John, you’ve dated far too many philosophy majors.

John (Continues Unabashedly)
“Huckabees,” which can take a dark but funny turn when a character changes the “H” for an “F,” has Albert (Jason Schwartzman), director of The Open Spaces Coalition, hire “Existential Detectives” Bernard (Dustin Hoffman) and Vivian (Lily Tomlin) to spy on himself for finding out who he is inside and why he has flubbed relationships on the outside.

Archenemy of the detectives is Caterine (Isabelle Huppert), a very French middle-aged radical not above rolling around in the muck to make dirty love with young Albert. The philosophy, however, is more difficult to fondle.

Clay ("I Heart Huckabees”)
John, “I Heart Huckabees” is “The Graduate” post-911. But instead of being seduced by Mrs. Robinson, our young hero DOES find himself mucking it up with Isabelle Huppert’s “Caterine.” Something there is about French women that American men find sensually existential. [And something there is about actress Huppert, who’s never been the same since she played the role of a down and dirty seducer in Michael Haneke’s “The Piano Teacher.”]

But back to “Huckabees,” which tells the story of a giant Wal-Mart-like company that wants to sink the foundation of its new store smack into the middle of Albert’s favorite wetland.

Featuring an ensemble cast of delightfully eccentric characters and a script that’s full of unspeakably foul four letter words, your hearts will go out to the lost souls, who are trying to figure whether life’s connected, and we should all do good, or whether its meaningless, and we should all do as we damn well please.

John (“Team America: World Police”)
The creators of “South Park” have fashioned the best political satire of this political season, “Team America: World Police,” done with puppets, strings and all. The filmmakers satirize hordes of Hollywood liberals such as Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon (They all belong to the Film Actor’s Guild, whose acronym is F.A.G.).

Director Trey Parker says, "The subtle joke here is that all actors are puppets.” Jerry Bruckheimer and Roland Emmerich also suffer ridicule for their testosterone epics such as “Armageddon” and “Day After Tomorrow.”

The film breaks into a song, among others, called “Pearl Harbor Sucked” (the film, that is). The James Bond-like villain, the source of the US’s terrorist suffering, is North Korean bad boy Kim Jong. When the gung-ho Team destroys world–class monuments such as The Louvre with misguided missiles, neocons will squirm in their seats.

"Team's" not always funny, but it is one of the "fair and balanced" satires out there today.

Clay (“Team America: World Police”)
“Fair and balanced” John? “Team America: World Police” is as about as fair and balanced as the news on Fox TV. [But who says a movie SHOULD be fair and balanced? Movies can do whatever they want as long the popcorn keeps popping and the cost of the tickets is able to pay for the bills.]

But you’re absolutely right the movie is clever, witty, and as savagely funny as can be. ”Team America” will have all America’s true patriots rolling in the aisles when the Hollywood anti-war puppets get sliced up, diced up, and blasted into bloody-red oblivion.

And all of America’s true patriots will love it when the Team blows up both the Eiffel Tower and The Louvre in order to destroy the terrorists, who mistakenly thought they could find refuge in those cultural bastions of the French.

So there you have it folks, “Team America: World Police,” is THE MOVIE that proves that we’re number one, and will still be number one, even when there’s nobody else left.

But enough of this self-justifying jingoism, John, it’s grading time!

John
Hooray!

HIT DRUMS

John
"I Heart Huckabees" is a "B" for its BAFFLING philosophy . . .

Clay
“I Heart Huckabees” gets an “A” because it knows that “to think or not to think” is the only real question worth posing . . .

John
"Team America: World Police" Earns a "B" for the BEST sex scene this year between 2 puppets who are NOT Bennifer. . .

Clay
“Team America: World Police” gets a “C” because a thug’s a thug no matter the CAUSE that he believes in . . .

John
Clay, "Team America: World Police's: World Police" almost NC-17 lovemaking puppets have found the existential core of romance--all strings attached.

YET, I'm outta here to wrestle those Russian ropes again. Go figure.

Clay
Give you enough rope, John, and you’ll be hung in more ways than one.

I’m outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks!

MUSIC

Richelle:
The Award Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is produced by Richelle Antczak in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus 106.7 FM in Newark, WYSO, etc.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

Copyright 2004 by John DeSando & Clay Lowe